Relationship Between Philosophy and Physics
Toward a Possible Complementarity
The Starting Point
When I speak of causal explanation, I mean providing the physical reason for a phenomenon.
From the moment things are formulated mathematically, we are no longer dealing with the ultimate physical reason itself. A physical law remains an abstraction that tends to correspond to the natural order without ever being identical to it.
The Different Levels of a Physical Theory
A physical theory involves several levels of abstraction:
1. A worldview: even when implicit, it is more or less present in the foundational concepts of the theory.
2. A mathematical structure: the theory organizes quantitative relationships through formalism.
3. An operational formulation: the theory defines how phenomena can be measured, tested, and predicted.
A worldview may be more or less true. A physical theory may be more or less verified. A worldview, because of its universality, can never be completely verified.
What Is Theoretical Physics?
Theoretical physics can be defined as the pursuit of coherence in the structure and movement of the physical world through the knowledge of quantitative proportions and within a mathematical formalism.
Its aim is to model physical behavior in the form of laws in order to derive predictions. The primary concepts of a theory must therefore already reflect a certain coherence in the structure and motion of the world. In this sense, a worldview is always present within physics.
When Can Philosophy and Physics Meet?
If philosophy discovers principles that possess not only ontological and intelligible value, but also real efficience, then a practical encounter between philosophy and physics becomes possible — a passage from the analysis of being to the analysis of phenomena.
Foundations
Each science must clarify what it grasps of reality and from which standpoint.
Critical Analysis
The critical dimension includes objections such as the Shuttle and Missile Objection, which challenges the concept of time derived from special relativity.
Practical Encounter
A practical encounter occurs when two forms of knowledge study the same reality and discover themselves to be complementary.
The remaining question is how, and under what conditions, this encounter can actually take place. Yet for the formulation of a general theory of the universe, such an encounter is unavoidable, because the notion of causality must be preserved.
A General Definition of Science
Some consider this project utopian because they do not regard philosophy as a science. I do not share this view. For a practical encounter between philosophy and physics to occur, one must adopt an epistemologically broad definition of science — one capable of encompassing both.
Proposed Definition
“In every scientific endeavor, there are shared criteria. Every scientific approach is an analysis that seeks to discover what is necessary in a given domain — this necessity being attained through principles that each science either discovers or establishes for itself according to its object. From a critical or experimental standpoint, each science investigates how thought relates to its object and then thematizes this relationship.
Necessity is first the universal, discovered through but beyond the particular and contingent; and secondly, by return, it is a new understanding of the particular in light of the universal. Each science is also aware of its own method and continuously adjusts between the universality of its principles and the contingent mode of the reality it studies.”
Excerpt from À la recherche de la théorie de l’univers (1990), Philippe de Bellescize, self-published. At the time, I sent the book to Hubert Reeves, who kindly replied.
Two Scientific Approaches
Philosophy
The principle used by realist philosophy is causality.
In a reality exhibiting structure and order, there must be something that accounts for them. Every cause is a principle, but not every principle is a cause, because a cause is a principle that truly exists.
Physics
The principle used by physics is the physical law.
A physical law remains an abstraction that tends to correspond to the natural order without fully coinciding with it. This is why the worldview, mathematical formulation, and operational level remain relatively independent.
To What Extent Can Philosophy Be a Science?
“It is causal analysis that enables philosophy to be a science. Yet all causal analysis ultimately rests on metaphysics. Cause implies something that endures from the standpoint of being. Since science is the discovery of necessity, it is still necessary to discover the foundation of that necessity within existing reality. If an a priori idea alone allows me to discover necessity, then philosophical analysis remains subjective, because what grounds necessity will not have been discovered in the reality itself.”
Excerpt from À la recherche de la théorie de l’univers (1990), Philippe de Bellescize.
The Central Proposal
My philosophical analysis of the physical world tends to show that the driving principle acts immanently and through interrelation, according to the determination of the elements (1).
Without a driving principle acting in this way, bodies would remain merely juxtaposed and the unity of the universe would collapse.
This mode of action leads almost inevitably to a fully relational conception of space-time.
Consequences for Physics
This relational conception is not fully compatible with certain conclusions of relativity.
The nature of the driving principle does not fall within the domain of physics. Yet in a general vision of the physical world, its mode of action can and should be taken into account.
In this way, a practical convergence between philosophy and physics becomes possible, with each field contributing its own kind of precision.
A Convergence with Chew’s Bootstrap Approach
Note 1. This perspective corresponds in certain respects to the bootstrap approach proposed by Geoffrey Chew.
“The only mechanism that satisfies the general principles of physics is nature’s own mechanism. The observed particles represent the only quantum-relativistic system that can be conceived without internal contradiction. Each nuclear particle plays three roles: as a constituent of composite systems, as a mediator of the force responsible for their cohesion, and as a composite system itself. The part appears at the same time as the whole. Nature is conceived as a global entity, non-separable at the fundamental level.”
Basarab Nicolescu, Nous, la particule et le monde, Le Mail, 1985, pp. 41–42.
Conclusion
If the cohesion of the physical world results from the immanent and relational action of the driving principle, then this conception must be extended to the understanding of space, motion, and the whole structure of physics.
It remains to apply this relational approach to space and motion.
Philippe de Bellescize